1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and process to monitor, detect and analyze chemical, biological and/or radiation threats in a secure environment.
2. Prior Art
There is widespread concern about deliberate use of chemicals, radiation and biological agents. Concern about the deliberate use of disease agents includes anthrax (which can be spread by inhaled spores), small pox, pneumonia, plague, tularemia, and botulism. For example, varida, the causative agent of smallpox, is highly infectious and transmitted aerially. While many of these agents have vaccines or treatments, they do not exist in quantities that might be needed and may not be located where an outbreak were to occur.
An intentional release of a chemical, radiation or biological agent may take several days or weeks to become apparent. Suspicions may emerge only once patients begin appearing in healthcare facilities or emergency rooms with unusual symptoms or diseases.
Increasingly, it is necessary for government authorities and health care providers to be alert to illness patterns and diagnostic clues that might indicate a disease outbreak associated with an intentional release of biological or chemical agent, as well as those that occur naturally. It is desirable to quickly identify the type or nature of a chemical or biological event and implement a planned response.
Chemical warfare is the intentional use of chemicals to cause disease and death in humans, livestock and crops. Biological warfare is the intentional use of micro-organisms and their toxins to produce disease and death in humans, livestock and crops. The attraction of bioweapons in war, and for use in terrorist attacks is attributed to easy access to a wide range of disease-producing biological agents, to their low production costs, to their non-detection by routine security systems and to their easy transportation from one place to another.
Identifying biological or chemical agents via lab testing is both time-consuming and costly.
There remains a need to develop monitoring and detection systems that can gather and analyze data from multiple locations quickly.
Accordingly, it is a principal object and purpose of the present invention to develop high-throughput, reliable real-time detection systems at a low cost.
It is a further object and purpose of the present invention to correlate multiple sources of data at a central site in order to interpret and analyze sources of data, assess risk and eliminate false positives from the system.
It is a further object and purpose of the present invention to detect biothreats, chemical or radiation threats prior to emergence of symptoms in the general population.
It is a further object and purpose of the present invention to provide a system to monitor, detect and analyze data relating to the threats in a secure environment.